The US Open is one of the largest events in the world, with more than 720,000 media, athletes, partners, and fans in attendance. With nearly every individual carrying a laptop, tablet or smart phone, the USTA’s internet security team faced an unprecedented challenge in providing an open network while enforcing internet policies, which included the blocking of gambling sites.

To ensure flawless performance under the brightest lights, EdgeWave and USTA developed a rigorous pre-event implementation and test plan that included peak traffic simulation and multiple usage scenarios. “With an event of this magnitude, there are thousands of moving parts that can change at any moment,” said Larry Bonfante, CIO, USTA. “Working with EdgeWave prior to the US Open allowed the Advanced Web Gateway to run flawlessly and to meet operational requirements from the very start, giving us one less thing to worry about.”

Throughout the US Open, internet traffic was as demanding as expected. On all fronts, the EdgeWave Advanced Web Gateway met performance requirements, sustaining 850+Mbps throughput, managing over 210,000 unique endpoint connections, and transferring more than 4.5TB of data. “The US Open was a great success. Our non-gambling filtering policies were strictly adhered to without ever having to touch endpoints, and the execution was flawless, with terabytes of data transferred,” said Mr. Bonfante.

“The USTA experienced the common struggle of meeting security requirements while not impacting the business or user experience,” said Dave Maquera, CEO and President, EdgeWave. “Instead of sacrificing security or user delight to gain better performance, the US Open was able to achieve all three by using the EdgeWave Advanced Web Gateway to build a high-performance, best-in-class security infrastructure that allowed them to maintain superior levels of network service while enforcing security policies.”

EdgeWave and the USTA are already partnering in planning for the 2014 US Open, with the expectations that bandwidth and security requirements will be even higher next year.